Most people are quite uncomfortable with change; the reasons why people detest any change are explicable. People resist a change or oppose it out rightly. That’s the reason why it is important to understand importance of feelings as change proceeds, and why they need to be guided through it. William Bridges’ Transition Model is a helpful framework in change management.

While most people expect changes are meant to be positive. A lot depends on individuals how they make things better, easier, and to fast-track the route to success. In organizations sometimes the hard-working employees end up being the number one obstacle to a new initiative. Bridges’ transition model helps dealing with the people-aspect of change management. It helps in turning them from obstacles to supporters. As an organizational consultant, William Bridges found that the most important responsibility was of guiding people through transition for successful change. He identified three stages of transition and his model strives to help business leaders to understand the feelings people go through a change process.

Bridges highlights the difference between transition and change. Change is speedy, and people often have no say when it happens. But transition is a slower process that happens internally. Transition is what goes on inside people’s minds as they go through a change process. Employees get affected by change when it transits from one stage to the next.  Therefore, business leaders must change their approach to people management in an empathetic development. The three stages of Bridges’ Transition Model are as follows:

Ending, losing, and letting go: When people first learn that they will have to face a change and their ‘comfort zone’ will be disturbed, they experience an emotional upsurge. If organizations fail to understand and acknowledge this fact, their employees might resist change all the way through a change initiative. When people see a change coming their way they feel afraid, they tend to rebuff, they feel angry, they feel disorientated, frustrated. And in short, they experience insecurity. Dealing with these feelings requires patience. People must be encouraged to be open about their emotional reaction to change and be understood by their superiors and peers about the way they feel. Throughout the change process discussions must be going on so that employees take initiatives on their own.

Employees must be told what their role will be, what their prospects would be the emoluments, the reporting relationship, their future growth in organization everything should be discussed with them.  Bridges believed that the emotional reaction to change is most important to be handled. Emotional health and wellbeing is something that shouldn’t be discarded.

The Neutral Zone: In this stage people are confused and puzzled; they are not sure if the change is good, bad or ugly. They feel uncertain and irritated. It all depends on how nicely managers administer the change process. Employees struggle with their new workloads and new tasks. Each person experiences the change differently depending upon his capacity. This phase is like a flyover between the old and the new. People take time to get detached from the old style, in this stage they try to adapt to the new. People experience resentment towards the change initiative. They are lost in their own world trying to cope with change. Their morale is low and therefore the productivity is also low. Employees carry anxiety about their role, status and identity.

Factually this stage can be one to initiate creativity, innovation, and renewal. This is a great time to encourage people to try new ways of thinking, practicing and working.

Employees must be guided by managers with patience. Their guidance is incredible, it is very important as people go through this neutral period. This can be an uncomfortable time, because it can seem unproductive, and in this little progress is being made. Frequent meetings and sharing feedback is a good solution. When people enter the neutral zone, they are not yet entirely comfortable with change and will still need a lot of encouragement.

The New Beginning: After a while, after few days pass things seem to start falling into place. People start seeing the real results of the change process. They might or might not see the positive result. Employees see how their efforts are starting to pay off. Suddenly, it all makes sense to them. The emotions are positive. They feel energized, they want to learn more, and they feel committed to their role. Naturally, this state of affairs should be sustained as the working atmosphere is positive. This is a time for celebration and rewards coming in pocket.

But, sometimes people can still slip back into stage 2 – the neutral zone. The results cannot be taken for granted, therefore it still necessary for managers to be vigilant.

Strength of the model: This framework focuses on transition, not change. The difference between these is subtle but important. Change is something that happens to people, even if they don’t agree with it. Transition, on the other hand, is an internal process, it happens in our minds. Change can happen very quickly, whereas transition usually is a slow process.

Changes occur in our lives at regular intervals, whether we are aware of them or not. As part of our nature as humans, we normally do not like major changes and the fear of the unknown that accompanies change. Some changes paralyze us emotionally. To handle changes in our life, we need to accept that we need to internally strengthen ourselves. And, we all need guidance and mentoring at each stage.

Life does not always comply with our wishes; it throws some good, bad and some ugly challenges.  If anything is constant, it is only change. It means that change is something that occurs continuously, change is an always-to-be-expected condition. We go through different stages of life cycle; from infancy we go to growth stage, from growth to maturity and from maturity to decline stage. At different stage of life, we get involved in different activities. Our millstones in life are compared with others. While comparing, if the focus is put on the wrong person, we become miserable. The fact is that we can control our own life, when we constantly compare ourselves to others; we waste precious energy focusing on other peoples’ lives rather than our own. Comparisons often result in bitterness.This post is about transition in life. Transition is the process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another.

The difference between change and transition is subtle but important. Change is something that happens to people, even if they don’t agree with it. Transition, on the other hand, is internal: it’ is what happens in our minds as we go through change. Change can happen very quickly, while transition usually occurs more slowly. For example, one global transition that is taking place is – in the next 25 years, the world needs to change its energy system and sharply reduce its carbon footprint in order to address global climate change. To do this, energy demand growth must slow down on a global basis and decline in some regions, and our fuel mix must change. Transitions always consume time.

Another example is the country of Sweden had a problem; they drove on the left side of the road. Not a problem in itself, but they used to face a problem when the countries surrounding region which is called the Nordic region, with whom they shared roads, all drove on the right. Anyone who drove in or out of the country had to partake in a complex series of movements to switch sides without causing chaos or, once those foreign drivers found themselves in a country that drives on a different side of the road, they had to maneuver a vehicle not designed for that side of the road. So the Swedish government decided it was time to change.  First, they put the transportation overhaul up to a public vote for illuminating the necessity of a shift in the process of changing. The most important lesson to learn in life is that nobody likes change; people pursue predictability and stability, not change. It took few years to follow the right hand drive and finally Sweden followed it!

One of the toughest transitions you might ever have to make involves moving your place of residence. The longer you lived somewhere, the harder that move becomes. You also find that there are times when you have to go with the flow with family, friends, and employers. We find it very difficult to do things which don’t fit our moral frame, but there are times we force ourselves to do so. Mikhail Gorbachev was a committed member of the Soviet Union Communist party. But, despite believing in the ideals of Communism, he saw many things were not working and so was willing to introduce the radical reform policies of Perestroika and Glasnost – which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in the East.

King Ashoka (304–232 BCE) was an Indian Emperor who ruled over a huge Indian Empire. He conquered Kalinga in a bitterly destructive war, in which thousands were slain. The lethal war with Kalinga transformed the unforgiving Emperor Ashoka; when he saw the loss of lives, loss of resources, he felt remorse, and he felt power is dangerous, he instead felt that power must be used for betterment of people. After Kalinga war Ashoka the great felt an urge of finding peace; he went through an inner transition and he became a patron of Buddhism. After seeing the slaughter he had caused, Ashoka embraced Buddhism and preached a new doctrine of non-violence, toleration and peace. Transitions are internal.

Annie Besant (1847–1933) was born in a middle-class family in Victorian Britain. She rebelled against the social norms and became a campaigner for social equality and trade unions. She later became interested in spirituality and became a Theosophist. In her later life, she became a campaigner for Indian Independence and was the leader of the Indian Congress party.

Often when we lose near and dear ones the vacuum teaches us to cope with challenges in life.  We feel helpless to cope with the emptiness, when children go for far off places for job, we feel empty.  Our life is actually a constant series of an immense number of transitions. There are some so tiny as to be hardly noticeable and whose impact kind of slips up on us. Our relationships with people around us changes gradually, our experience in work changes us, our experience with friends and peers changes us. Some changes are subtle while some changes knock us. All said and done life is a series of transitions.

World Has Become Volatile: Volatility is ever increasing.  Brexit is a good example of VUCA world. Britain’s exit from the European Union took the world by surprise. A consequence of this political factor has affected economics, commerce, regulatory system and emotional perception of people at large. The British leaves alone isolated from their major trading partners, i.e the Euro Zone. That is surely not a healthy thing for world trade. The real shocks are yet to be faced. After Brexit, political and security effects would be more important to the US. The potential economic gains and losses for the U.S in Brexit are small, apart from the TTIP-like arrangement which would result in substantial economic gains for the US. The US will miss the influence and global perspective that the UK brings to the EU decision-making process, particularly around foreign policy, security and defence. TTIP (T-Tip) is a planned agreement focused on lowering trade tariffs and removing costly regulations on business across the Atlantic. These barriers include labour rights, food safety rules and banking safeguards put into place following the recession.

Syria’s war shows no sign of stopping. Syria can be described as several interconnected wars. It’s not the government-versus-rebels narrative it started out as in 2011. In the last few weeks, the proxy conflicts between Israel and Iran and Turkey and the Kurds have heated up in particular.

US’s pressure on Turkey to deal with Isis will actually make Turkey more vulnerable to attack from the terrorist group.  Brazil is unable to address its growing fiscal deficit, the war between North Korea and South Korea, the political instability in many parts of world has increased the volatility in world.  The geographical, political, ecological, economical changes are too much of burden on the business organizations.

Uncertainty everywhere: Uncertainty is linked to volatility. Business organizations are reworking on their decision making frameworks in which decisions can be executed. Management techniques were always based on assumptions about the future and the use of planning is a major tool of management control. Change is constant, products are living a shorter life span, to top it all, political and economical events are spinning the decision making of business managers like never before. Planning, budgeting and control methods lead to never-ending discussions in company board rooms; it just doesn’t reach any logical conclusion. Once again, just look at Brexit again. Everyone knew that the “leave” decision of voters had a 50% chance of occurrence but a few hours later the consequences of it were nevertheless still hard to predict.

Mergers, acquisitions and takeovers have reached a peak globally because firms are seeking to reposition themselves and protect profitability in the face of shifting customer demands, rising regulation and the need to embrace technology.

Complexities are only mounting: Globalisation has pushed the boundaries of doing business, which has only created a wide gap between developed and underdeveloped markets, increasing the competition from new entrants. Globalization has put pressure on businesses of all sizes to tap international customer base. From a technology point of view, s businesses need to review all processes and see how their legacy and systems can cope with training of staff, multi-lingual customers, foreign compliance and a whole host of other intricate and very time-consuming changes. The biggest fact today is the start-ups are giving competition to established businesses in many sectors, the bigger and established players are dumbfound due to ac of creativity and innovation. Organizations today need 24X7 innovative pool of employees, those who can just keep innovation pumping at all levels of business. And, another fact is however innovative people get information technology takes its own time to change. This means that businesses have become too reliant on their expensive legacy systems, restricting innovation as a result.

Ambiguity cannot be wiped out: Too much of information keeps pouring in from everywhere, and the media keeps people on their heels. Customers are having large information, they are confused about what to buy, how to buy, from where to buy, at what price to buy….  Everything has become complex: pricing, operations, R&D, firm’s infrastructure, supply chains, customers’ behaviors, big data systems, economic models, finances everything is challenging. Due to random organizational structures, the authority and responsibility lines grow blurred, which creates a big leadership challenge. Due to blurring responsibilities of managers, internal complexities keep growing in organization. Employees get busy playing the blame game and politicising the work atmosphere. The same is with Governments, blurring responsibilities gives way to non transparency in systems. Globalization has paved way for a growing number of multi-channels with customers, each with their own set of priorities and responsibilities. At the Government level, organizational level, channels level and customer level haziness exists.

Conclusion: One of the main challenges of today’s business scenario is to accommodate inconsistencies in (PESTLE) Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental constituents. The complexity of today, demands managers to act by taking into account the complete picture, they should understand that pure statistical data cannot suffice for decision making. They should get ready for implications when wrong decisions are made, volatility and ambiguity in markets can lead in making wrong decisions. They should learn to accommodate the extremes; the dichotomy of good, bad, right, wrong desirable and undesirable does not exist any longer.

On a personal level employees must be tolerant to ambiguity and volatility by taking care of their mental and physical health, they must practice critical thinking and risk acceptance. VUCA World is here to stay.

Kurt Lewin was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational and applied psychology in the United States. Lewin emigrated from Germany to America during the 1930’s and is recognized as the “founder of social psychology” which highlights his interest in the human aspect of change. He is remembered even today for one of his keystone models for understanding organizational change which was developed back in the 1940s, and still holds true today. His model is known as Unfreeze – Change – Refreeze which refers to the three-stage process of change management.

When changes take place in organizations the biggest problem they face is resistance to change in terms of: is there any real need for the change? Whether needs would be met with the impending change? The risks associated with adopting the change, lack of abilities to face the change, the fear that change might fail the organization, the process of change might not be handled properly by management. Thus, organization faces a lot of inconsistency. Kurt Lewin suggested three stages for smooth changeover:

1^st stage: Unfreezing

The Unfreezing stage is best handled when organizations realize that change is necessary. The biggest fact is that world around us changes each day. The business environment goes through constant change due to volatility. The first stage is about getting ready to change. It is getting ready to move away from the comfort zone. The first step is about preparation by one and all in the organization. Prior to the change, preparing people to change is most important. When majority people in the organization feel that change is necessary, it becomes urgency and people feel more motivated to have the change. This ends the procrastination; as the closer the deadline, people are more likely to snap into action and actually get the job started.

Unfreezing also means weighing up benefits and damages; if benefits outnumber the damages an action can be easily taken. This is analysis was called the Force Field Analysis by Kurt Lewin. Force Field Analysis is studying different factors for and against making change that the organization is aware of.

2^nd Stage: Transition

Lewin believed that change is not an event, but rather a process. He called the process of change a transition. Transition is the inner movement or a shift we make in reaction to a change. The second stage occurs as we make the variations that are needed. In this stage people in the organization get ‘unfrozen’ and start moving towards a new way of being. This stage of shifting is often the hardest as people are unsure and fearful. The transition if not handled professionally, becomes chaotic. It creates volatility among people. The transition state often emotionally drains people, emotions ranging from anguish to nervousness to anger to anxiety to relief. During the transition, productivity predictably declines.

Transitions become peaceful when people are communicated the need for it. People learn new behaviors during this stage. The day-to-day activities are simultaneously carried on. Therefore, this stage is very challenging. Only when people are convinced themselves and they see benefit, they give signal of willingness. This is not an easy time as people are learning about the changes and need to be given time to understand and work with them. Support is really important here and can be in the form of counselling, training, coaching, advising and analyzing. The chances are they make mistakes and the mistakes must be pardoned as part of the process.

Using role models and allowing people to develop their own solutions also help to make the changes. It is very important to communicate clear picture of the desired change and the benefits to people so they do not lose sight of the destination.

3^rd Stage: Refreezing

Kurt Lewin called this stage freezing which many people refer to as ‘refreezing.’  This stage is about establishing stability once the changes have been made. And when the changes are accepted they become the new norm. People form new relationships and become comfortable with their routines. This can take time. But it brings newness, freshness and innovation with it. In today’s world change takes place within days or weeks. There is just no time to settle into comfortable routines. Hence organization rarely get refreeze, the modern thinking about change is that it is continuous and sudden. Hence organizations prefer staying flexible to change. And staying unfreeze for next change is better. Given today’s pace of change this is a reasonable criticism. In 1947 Lewin wrote: “A change towards a higher level of group performance is frequently short-lived, after a “shot in the arm”, group life soon returns to the previous level. This indicates that it does not suffice to define the objective of planned change in group performance as the reaching of a different level. Permanency of the new level, or permanency for a desired period, should be included in the objective”.

British Airways case: In 1981, British Airways (BA) was considered an unproductive, loss making nationalized company. Had it been a private ownership company, it would probably have been declared bankrupt. John King, who was appointed Chairman in 1981 brought in the turnaround because the passenger airline was making annual losses of £140 million. By 1989, two years into life as a private company, BA was making over £260 million profits per year. This case throws light on change management. The first thing King did was BA was privatized. King recognized that the organizational restructuring is unavoidable, change management is compulsory.

King removed 22,000 employees while reshuffling its operations. He hired Colin Marshall as CEO.  BA’s fleet of aircraft was replaced. He also removed unprofitable routes. These actions of his allows BA to shed its weight in terms of oversized staff, ineffective and obsolete  fleet of aircrafts, thus, helping the airline to reshape itself. Though the need for change and the type of change required was obvious to the new chairman, King realized that the organizational restructuring would affect every single person associated with the company.

King knew that the change should occur in a systematic timeframe, it cannot linger on for years and the reason and implications change must be communicated to the employees, without wasting too much of time he communicated the cause of restructuring by putting a plan in place to achieve the goals of organizational change. In the case of BA, the ultimate goal was the privatization of the company. To get there, King first had to ensure its survival. To achieve the goals King involved the whole organization in his change management plan: from HR, operational staff, technology, engineering, aircrews, and administration. He realized that resolving conflicts and dealing with resistance to change was part of the change management process.

Lewin’s Unfreeze-change-refreeze can be explained in the following steps adopted by BA:

Unfreeze:

King created a sense of urgency: The urgency was simply communicated; the employees were told either change or face closedown of the airline. The staff was told that it would be rather prudent to close the airline, rather than continue making losses of huge sums every year.

The new vision and mission was communicated to all stakeholders. The stakeholders were made aware to act upon the action plan. When stakeholders are involved in the change process, the change can be effectively carried on more swiftly. If restructuring involves job losses, then stakeholders should involve workers’ groups or unions.

Change:

A flexible atmosphere for created for the change: It is very important to realize that rigidity  does not allow to change, people and processes are interlinked, hence resistance should be avoided at each stage.

Change management must be led by leaders: Change management must be led by the leaders consistently and supported by managers at all levels. These managers not only convey the message down the line, but also report on feedback and progress.

Implementation plan must have clarity: Strategizing change requires following the project implementation plan. The two will go hand-in-hand, as all stakeholders move toward organizational strategic goals.

Refreeze:

Cultivate behavioral change: after changes are brought in, the change must be projected through people and their attitude. People should walk the talk of the adopted change. At this stage counsellors and mentoring helps people a lot.   In 1982, Colin Marshall became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of British Airways plc. In this period, British Airways produced its first additional profit which was the outcome of the cost-cutting actions implemented by John King. Colin Marshall decided to pay attention to its customer service in order to ensure that company carries on making profit. Marshall hired Consultants to collect data about workers and customer attitudes. Significant gaps were plugged between what was delivered by BA staff what the consumer actually required.

Change is simply inevitable. Change is something that will happen no matter how hard we try to stop it. Change is a part of the world we live in. Day turns into night and night into new day. Sun rises and sets. Seasons change. A new born slowly starts maturing. With every passing moment, events change. And most of these events cannot be predicted. Sometimes, the changes that take place in our lives are slow, and sometimes even anticipated. While other times, the changes are immediate and sudden. Abrupt changes can throw us into a place of fear and uncertainty.

Both abrupt and anticipated changes make us anxious. Moreover, changes whether anticipated or unanticipated don’t always produce an outcome that we favor; for instance, a couple might date for 10 years, get married and soon their relation becomes wobbly. The couple might have had anticipated good time in the 10 years dating, but things end in bad taste. In another example, a student hardly prepares for a competitive exam; he gives the exam for the heck of it but passes it! So, the point is we hardly have any control on events taking place in our life.

Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) was first developed by Albert Ellis (American Psychologist) in the 1950s. Although Ellis had initially done work in the field of Behaviorism, later became convinced of the causal nature of cognitive (conscious intellectual thinking) processes. He went on and developed a model of behavior that involves a continuous relationship between environmental factors and the internal mental state of human mind. According to Ellis, a person’s cognitive process determines according to his expectations from life, and the way he interacts with life. A happy person will interact happily with others, while a depressed person might interact with a weighed down attitude with others.

For Ellis, the alphabets ABC offered insights into how to overcome self-defeated behaviors and cognition. The “A” here stands for activating events in life. It includes of all good, bad and the ugly events in life. The everyday obstacles and difficulties that everyone is forced to deal with just as a consequence of interacting with the world. The “B” stands for our belief system. It is our belief system which leads us to think positive in an adverse situation to overcome the hardship. The “C” represents the consequences that arise as a result of our belief. Negative beliefs underpin and contribute to negative outcomes, and that having positive beliefs about confronting adversity naturally lead to good results.

From the moment one comes into the world, begins to develop his/her belief system. A person’s belief system forms on all rational and irrational inputs which go into him. As a child one does not have a well formed capacity for logical inference therefore developing one’s belief system is not necessarily rational process. It is rather a process based upon one’s experience in the world. As a person matures, his abilities develop and his understandings expand. He starts gathering information and he gathers evidence for making decisions. His belief system also depends a lot on his traditional background. He makes or breaks dogmas depending on how authoritative he is. On the other hand, if a person is vulnerable and a follower of some bossy associates in life, his associations matter a lot.  Cheerful and positive associations make us happy, negative associations make us sadder and nagger. Revelations are equally important in our life in constructing our belief system. Revelation has the power to unmask things and it can unfold many mysteries in life. Revelation is divinity. Wisdom helps us to live healthier life.

“C” is consequences. They are result or effect, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant. They also mean an act or instance of following an act. Consequence is a result or an outcome.

 People have slaughtered each other in wars, people have gone length into investigations which sometimes are twisted and turned as per demand of time. Irrational politics in the world has created havoc leaving the rationality far behind. Bad political actions for centuries have been based on racism, religion and dogmas. See how powerful beliefs are. They are so overly powerful that they can make or break global systems. I want to quote here yesterday, on 7^th Jan 2015 how some brilliant cartoonists in France were killed by some fundamentalists.

Belief in religion makes people so blind that yesterday’s news of hooded gunmen killing cartoonists with pen names Charb, Wolinski, Cabu, Tignous and Honore who were famous for expressing their feelings towards all forms of authority with the world’s spiky, no-holds-barred political cartoons. Religion can make us so blind. These cartoonists’s irreverence has cost them their lives. They were most revered and controversial cartoonists in France. And why were these intelligent and fearless cartoonists shot? It’s because they drew caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad and other controversial sketches which raged feelings of Islamic community. See how our beliefs can mar our logic very easily.

Throughout history, humankind has paid reverence to beliefs and mystical thinking. Organized religion has played the most significant role in the support and propagation of beliefs and faith. This has resulted in an acceptance of beliefs in general; regardless of how one may reject religion, religious support of supernatural events gives credibility to other superstitions in general and the support of faith, belief without evidence, mysticism, and miracles. Most scientists, politicians, philosophers, and even atheists support the notion that some forms of belief provide a valuable means to establish “truth” as long as it contains the backing of data and facts. Belief has long become a socially acceptable form of thinking in science as well as religion.

It is therefore very important to change, to twist our old and trodden belief system and design a healthy and empowering system. However, it is interesting to note that rational thinking requires the adherence to beliefs.

Artificial beliefs and memories can affect people’s attitudes, at least in the short term. One gets to choose his beliefs. One also get to choose the actions that he chooses to take but sorry nobody gets to choose the consequences of his beliefs. According Rational Emotive Therapy, people contribute to their own psychological problems by the way they interpret events and situations. However, every human is empowered to change his belief system. Irrational beliefs in our life only trouble us and do not help us. One can learn skills to get over the disputing irrational thinking.

At any point in life, it is worth to spend some time and focus on self-interest, self-direction, and tolerance of self and others, flexibility, self-acceptance, and scientific thinking. It is always better to adopt this type of balanced thinking which helps in experiencing a minimum of emotional disturbance. Albert Ellis said that all psychological problems stem from the way people think about things. The core of much psychological trouble comes because of irrational ideas that are self-defeating.

So friends, the beliefs you have about yourself can drive your long-term behavior. Maybe you can trick yourself into taking some important decisions that requires your basic behavior. But, if you don’t shift your underlying identity, then it’s hard to stick with long-term changes. The root of behavior change and building better habits is your uniqueness. Each action you perform is driven by the fundamental belief that it is possible. So if you change your identity – the type of person that you believe that you are, then it’s easier to change your actions. You are the carver of your destiny.